A Mage's Journey
by mrcmc888
Summary: A hero's work is never done. As peace seemingly looms over the universe, Nanoha Takamachi is called to serve as a bodyguard for an intergalactic sporting festival to be held on a mysterious planet. What she encounters there is a web of lies and deceit. As her world crumbles around her, can she remain the hero of the universe, or will she stray from that path?
1. Chapter 1

She awoke to the sound of something hitting the walls around her, tap-tap-tapping constantly. She was still groggy as she slowly pulled herself up from her cold bed and opened her eyes. She had taken to sleeping; there was nothing to do in this transparent box but sleep and think, so that was all that she did. Nothing but that, for months on end.

The first thing that came to her mind as she gathered her wits was wondering why the guards were standing outside her cell in the middle of the night. The second thing was why the door was ajar, and why there were two blasters pointed at her face.

The two men were dressed in the clothing of a typical security grunt, but the ones in her block weren't armed. She knew that well enough. This was the Time-Space Administration Bureau's deep-space prison, reserved for the worst. Maximum security. They didn't need to be armed, because there was no way to even escape your own cell.

In two years of being there, the door had not come open, not once.

She slowly began to process the situation she had in front of her; scenarios began to flash through her mind. Her life was at stake. She knew that much.

The guard in the front walked forward, a sneer on his face, and as he came into the light she could see his uniform was splattered with blood. Neither of them had any magical power, but the Bureau had locked her internal Device when she was sentenced here, and hers wasn't a combat type, either.

The blaster was now inches from her face. The guard had moved so close she could feel his hot breath pounding against her neck.

"What do you want?" she spoke, trying not to give away her fear. Her voice echoed throughout the hollow chamber.

"Don't mind us," the guard smirked. "Just taking out the trash."

So it was just as she thought.

"The ones next door weren't much trouble," he grinned. "So I hope you won't make this any. It'll be over quick."

Her mind had settled on something, one possible outcome. It was a tiny chance, but...it was her only way to survive, and she had nothing to lose by trying.

"You killed my sisters too?" she growled. It was a bluff. She couldn't care less about the others that had been imprisoned alongside her, but all it took was an expression of sincerity to get them to let their guard down.

"Sisters?" The guard snorted, then began to cackle. It was the most grating sound she'd heard in a while. "Trash like you think you have family? You're just a failed fucking experiment!"

"You killed them, didn't you? Dr. Scaglietti too?" She bit her lip, to appear if she was furious, but inside she felt only calmness. Was she supposed to be angry? These were, at least, the closest to what people called "family" she had, and people got angry if someone hurt their family. Or, they should. But did they really? Maybe they were just like her, and only pretended to rage, when secretly they didn't care. Or maybe they were happy someone finally got rid of their annoying siblings, or their nagging parents, or maybe their ungrateful children. At least, that's what she thought. She still, despite spending a lot of time learning about them in the past few years, didn't quite understand why humans acted the way they acted.

The barrel of the blaster was shoved up against her cheek, pressing into it. The guard was inches from her face. "No one cares that a terrorist just died. Because he got what he deserved." He smelled like a mixture of sweat and the Supools meat markets. "And so will you."

It was the opening that she needed desperately.

As his trigger finger twitched, she ducked under, ramming him in the stomach with her shoulder before slipping out. The other guard wasn't paying attention; he had relaxed, rightly assuming that his partner would finish her. That was his mistake.

Before he could react, she had flown into the back of his knees, dropping him to the ground. His blaster skidded along the metal grated floor, right into her hand. In one fluid motion, she drew it and fired at the other guard, still doubled over in the cell, gasping for air.

A beam of bright yellow-white light flew from the weapon in her hand and pierced him between the eyes. He fell to the side, and she could just make out the dark pool beginning to form beneath him.

A weight pressed against her leg, and her gaze wandered downward to the other guard, still not able to rise, weakly grabbing at her pants, a look of pure terror on his face.

She kicked his hands aside and shot him in the head.

Just because she had no magic didn't mean she was powerless. They should have known better, she thought. They should have known better than to underestimate a Combat Cyborg. Maybe if they had just done their job rather than stopping to gloat about it, they would be in her place instead.

Now was not the time to think about it, though. Now was the time to go. The silent alarm had probably already been tripped by her exiting the cell. The Enforcers, and the rest of the guards would probably be here soon.

This was her only chance for something she had been thinking about for months, as she lay in that cell. Her Device's offensive capabilities were locked, but not her network interface...apparently the net was a human right to the TSAB, and she was glad that it was, because she managed to find her way into a blueprint of the facility that some intern, probably, had left unencrypted. Maybe your normal prisoner wouldn't have found it, but for her it was remarkably simple.

As she sat inside her own prison, she planned her escape. Meticulously, nothing was left to chance. The only way out was the hangar, five blocks down. They would be filled with other prisoners and guards, but the air ducts ran between her block and the hangar, and would be free of any obstructions.

Her shoes clacked on the metal grating beneath her as she reached the entrance to the air vents. She pulled on it...nothing. It was welded shut. The only solution would be to use her blaster again. She wanted to avoid making so much noise, but...oh well. She had already failed at that. She aimed and pulled the trigger, and the gate punctured back into itself. In a single move, she flung herself down into the air duct.

It was big enough to stand, and as she ran down it, every single footstep echoing, she counted off the exits. One, two, three...nine, that wasn't it, ten, that wasn't either, eleven, close, twelve! She aimed and fired again, and flung herself out from her passage amidst the broken metal.

She had emerged into the hangar, between scores of small cruisers and single-person fighters docked on the black tarmac. The ceiling raised almost to the heavens, and the only thing separating the hangar from the cold void of space were the blast doors dead ahead. She had emerged in front of a group of technicians in their neon orange jumpsuits. Some had their helmets on, respirators hanging slack off to the side, and some did not; they stared at her with eyes wide in terror as she pointed the weapon at them. The cards they had apparently been playing were strewn around the ground along with drink cans and bits and pieces of the makeshift table they had made from spare parts.

They didn't even have time to move before she blasted their heads off their shoulders. As the bodies slumped in front of her, the scream of a klaxon began to sound. Now she had tripped the actual alarm. Well, it was to be expected, but it didn't matter. The pursuit division was caught off guard. They wouldn't be able to send any starships after her.

She scurried up the steps up the side of the fighter in front of her, and launched herself into the cockpit. As she touched the ignition screen, a transparent keyboard, maybe holographic, or maybe just made out of nothing, unfurled in front of her. It would only take a minute to hack the ship's onboard computer. Her fingers flew furiously across the keys, scrawls of code painting themselves onto the interface and then disappearing almost too fast for the human eye to catch.

 _..._

Ranulf _-class starfighter EE101A, starting up._

 _..._

 _Performing user authentication._

 _..._

 _TSAB user credentials recognized._

 _..._

 _All systems normal. Mana flow stable. 25 seconds to engine ready._

 _..._

 _Main navigation online._

 _..._

 _Turrets online._

From her position in the cockpit, she could hear footsteps pounding on the floor beneath her.

 _I have to delay them._

She pressed a button on the console and drew back the joystick, and the two long cannons on the underside of the ship began to swivel.

As the first black-clad mage emerged from behind the rows of parked spacecraft, she fired a stream of powerful energy from the guns, white and brilliant. It threw the ships in the hangar to the side; as Enforcers poured in, she concentrated fire on the heavy cruiser parked alongside's midsection. It groaned, collapsed into itself, then exploded in a mighty magical pulse, throwing Enforcers to the left and right around it.

 _Engines online._

The turrets swiveled to the front, and she focused fire on the blast doors. An intense orange spot grew and grew upon it, larger, larger, then melting, then a hole began to open. Almost instantly, she felt the pull, as space began to suck the contents of the hangar out of it. Ships smashed against each other as they jostled for position towards the breach in the blast doors.

She pushed the throttle forward, and the small fighter took off, weaving its way around the debris being sucked out to the void alongside her. The space was small, but almost there...she could make it...

A large section of a cruiser suddenly flung itself in front of her, and she pulled down on the joystick, narrowly missing. As the fighter emerged into space, she could feel the debris scraping against the roof.

 _Heavy damage sustained to upper area. Shields 50%. Estimated amount of dimensional jumps remaining before automatic Device shutdown: 3._

The ship would have to devote its processing power and mana to fixing the damage. It could only go so far before it would have to stop and let the Device recalibrate.

She was free, but she couldn't go far. As she sped out, leaving the prison floating, suspended in the void between the pinholes of light, rotating like a Catherine wheel, its side pierced and its blood streaming from it, she began to think.

Only three jumps from here. The closest dimensional portal was five minutes' travel. Maybe there were planets on this plane that she could make it to without having to make a jump, but she instantly ruled it out. Those would be too obvious for the TSAB to search.

One or two jumps would be searched heavily as well. She pulled up the planetary map on the fighter's terminal; all four planets up to two planes either way from her current one had heavy TSAB presence. She couldn't ditch her fighter there. It had to be the full three jumps.

Three planes in the positive direction, there was nothing. Three planes in the negative...

Yne.

The only planet contained on the plane was Yne. She knew it instantly. It was completely built up, but the Great War had left most of the planet's skyscrapers abandoned; farthings upon farthings of cityscape stood ruined. There was plenty of land for her to come down in, and the people were notorious for hating Midchildans. They hated TSAB agents in general. Perhaps she would find someone sympathetic to her cause there.

Or maybe not, but she had no other choice.

She entered her destination on the console and sat back as the autopilot began its duty, beginning to drift back into the sleep that she had been jolted out of just earlier. It was fine to relax for a moment, she thought...there would only be more trouble ahead of her.

* * *

 **AUTHOR'S NOTES:**

I know it's been a while since I've had time to write. It seems like forever to me too...I've started university since I last updated, and that's a whole lot of pressure. Pretty much the stress of school bleeds into my free time, and I get depressed and don't want to write. At times, it seems like a lot of work, and I don't get flashes of inspiration frequently, until I did for this story. It's a whole new idea, set after the canonical events of Strikers, when the actual canon material started to devolve into suckiness.

I have a particularly extensive headcanon of what Old Belka and the ancient times were actually like, and I want to get the chance to write it all down and share it with you, so I plan to incorporate a lot of it into this story. I think it's a cool idea to actually explore more of what an intergalactic confederation would actually be like. How do planets differ from each other? Are they actually all as idyllic as the series would make you believe, or is there more going on? The great wars that raged after Belka fell still affect my universe to the present day. It's not actually shown in canon, but I feel like large-scale warfare with magic would lead to a lot of deaths and destruction, and a lot of impact on the universe as a whole.

Our mystery prologue POV isn't going to be the main character, although she'll be a fairly important one. One issue I had with canon works is that despite being the main character, the story was often less about Nanoha and more about her rivals/subordinates/enemies/etc. Using that as inspiration, I decided that this work will focus on her first. Of course, there will be exploration of other characters, and even some of the past, but I wanted to put her and her development first and foremost.

Even though I said this the last time I disappeared for a year straight, I want to get back to writing. I hope to update when I can, and I hope you'll bear with me.

Until next time,

mrcmc888


	2. Chapter 2

It wasn't the first time that she had seen a corpse, but even Fate Testarossa, the cool ace of the Navy, still got a little unnerved by death.

She was the commanding officer of this mission, though. Twenty-four Naval mages, including one teenager who she had specifically chosen to follow in her footsteps and become one of the elite Enforcers just like her, were relying on her for guidance. She had learned long ago to never show weakness in front of her subordinates.

Unlike her, many other members of the squad weren't as good at hiding their disgust. Quite a few of the party were making a conscious effort not to look at the glassy-eyed bodies staring lifelessly at the ceiling, and a couple were visibly pale.

The corpse directly below her's arms were spread-eagle, his weapon hanging limply from his right hand. She stepped carefully around the dried brown stain surrounding him and plucked it from his grip, turning it over to examine it. _Model 97_ , she thought. The safety was set to lethal. She moved briefly to check the other body slumped in the cell, but there was no weapon on him. _He should have been carrying one as well_ , she mused. Almost immediately, she got an idea of what had killed these two. The killer must have stolen the gun and ran. It was what was consistent with reports of deaths in nearby cells and the hangar.

However, these two bodies, and the four dead in the next cells over, were the only leads she had to go on. The hole blown in the hangar had already sucked the dead far out to space even for how quickly the Navy had responded to the incident. Two cruisers were patrolling the area to pick up any debris and bodies, but by the time the dead were found, they would already be frozen, bloated, and burned red by the vacuum and radiation, and it would be impossible to tell exactly what happened to them.

She pressed the button on the side of the blaster, and it opened itself in two to reveal a cube-shaped vial of luminous liquid. It was not full; this one had been fired as well. However, when Fate turned to look at the back of the wall of the cell, there were no scorch marks.

It was a little confusing to her at why the one blaster would have been fired when there were no signs of the bolt actually connecting, but more confusing was why these two had lethal weapons on them. They had no magical power; they were simply your ordinary, run of the mill TSAB agents. Only the highest-ranking Army members would be allowed to have a blaster that would fire lethal, and none of them would be assigned to be prison guards, like these men were.

She pulled her Device, which in its inactive state resembled just a yellow gem, from her pocket and instantly, a holographic screen with a girl's face on it manifested itself.

" _Venture_ , this is Task Force-Sigel. Requesting update on the identities of the deceased."

The young woman on the screen pushed her glasses up on her nose. "Roger, Task Force-Sigel. Two TSAB personnel deceased in cell block B1-B are Gudfred Millebern and Roger Petrus, ages 24 and 22. Both enlisted into the Ground Forces and have served as prison guards for approximately nine months. They began their terms concurrently and were assigned to the same block."

"What was their service armory?" Fate asked.

"Non-mage guards in the maximum security sector are equipped with the Model 84 blaster and the Tiwaz electric stun gun."

"Did they have permission to carry lethal weapons?"

The girl paused for a second, then replied, "No, sir, as far as I can tell they did not."

"Can I get a check on the deceased prisoners?"

"Cell number B1-B-45, Combat Cyborgs Tre and Sette..." Instantly, Fate felt a sharp pain in her stomach. Deep down, she knew the fallout from the incident she had helped take care of nine months earlier was not over. It had been resolved far too conveniently. Her, Nanoha, and the four mages they handpicked as their successors had stopped the mad scientist and his supersoldiers from destroying their home planet, and they were promptly carted off to prison or placed in the TSAB forces, never to be seen again. In hindsight, she knew she should have paid more attention, but she just wanted some peace and quiet. Out of sight, out of mind, so they say.

"Cell number B1-B-46, Combat Cyborg Uno and Dr. Jail Scaglietti. All were being held on a life sentence."

 _Wasn't there one more?_

"Cell number B1-B-47, Combat Cyborg Quattro, held in solitary confinement, is unaccounted for."

That was who did it, then? That sneering face that Fate still saw in the back of her mind sometimes?

"What about the hangar?"

"Our engineers are working with the prison technicians to get the airlock shut and the life support back up. One _Klarwind_ -class cruiser is missing, along with three _Alfeis_ -class shuttles and nine _Ranulf_ -class fighters. According to the engineers, one of the fighters used its cannons to blow a hole in the airlock. Our only eyewitness testimony confirms that."

So that was the culprit. A vague picture of how the scene had played out in Fate's mind. The guards had come for a check, and had been killed with their own guns. Quattro shot her fellow Combat Cyborgs and creator, and escaped using the fighter in the hanger, killing everyone who got in her way.

Something didn't seem right about that, though. From the ones she had talked to, she knew the Combat Cyborgs were loyal and would never harm each other or their creator. They were as close as family, or at least she thought they were.

And then there were the guards. Why were they checking cells in the middle of the night? Why were they carrying weapons they weren't authorized to? Why was the one fired, if there were no marks to indicate it?

"Sir? Sir?"

"Uh...yes!" Fate replied, a bit startled.

"We've just received confirmation from Naval HQ that Task Force-Beorc of the _Vanguard_ is on its way to assist with cleanup."

"Roger that."

Footsteps sounded on the metal floor behind her, and Fate turned to see a young red-haired girl, dressed in the same black uniform as her, running toward her. As soon as she saw the bodies, she stopped and took a step back, and Fate thought she could see a little color draining from her face.

"Commander!"

"Go ahead, Lieutenant Lanster."

"The coroners are being summoned. I've assembled a preliminary crime scene investigation if you would like to check it."

Fate followed her junior officer toward the cells on the right. As she turned to the first one, she saw two women, dead, on the floor of the cell.

Not all the Combat Cyborgs had been imprisoned. Some, just like she had been many years ago, were deemed coerced and offered spots in the TSAB ranks, under supervision. Three had been classed as co-conspirators and given sentences, but one of the ones who was given a coercion judgement couldn't bear to leave her older sister behind, so she ended up thrown in the prison alongside her. And this is what it got her.

Unlike the previous cell, this one directly had scorch marks on the back. Fate could tell that these two were killed by the same blaster that ended the guards' lives.

Unlike the guards, though, they didn't bleed.

Fate immediately turned and continued to the next cell. One woman, just like the other two in the previous one, was slumped on the floor, almost like she was asleep, but a man sat in the back, a blaster hole through his head. Where he had bled out was readily apparent. Out of the corner of her eye, Fate could see Teana turn her head away. She seriously looked like she was about to be sick.

Fate steeled herself and moved forward to check the corpse. The man didn't seemed to be alarmed by meeting his fate. He was almost smiling. This one didn't fear death.

She knew that face. She was the one who had captured him, after all. And she remembered her words that very day she took him and his Cyborgs in:

 _No harm will come to you._

She had told a lie and she didn't even realize it.

And then another part of her popped up, saying _Why do you feel sympathy for him? Do you remember what he tried to do to you and all those you loved? You should be relieved he got what was his._

Fate shook her head. She had already given him what he deserved. That was the hard part in being an Enforcer. Her purpose was to be an instrument of the universe's justice, not her own or anyone else's. It was not her place to hold a grudge. She had neutralized a criminal, and he had been given his sentence. That was all she should do.

Someone else may have not thought that way, perhaps. Or maybe someone only killed him out of selfish ends. Regardless, Fate felt a twinge of sadness. She had promised this man that he would be able to live his life out to the end, and she couldn't even guarantee that.

Once again, another dissenting voice rang in her head. _It's not your fault. You were doing other things and you don't oversee anything going on here. You can't be responsible for what happens to him_.

Fate knew that voice was right, but even if it was illogical, she felt like she had at least played a part in this man's death.

She could tell that Teana recognized him too. She had played just as big a part in fighting against his attacks on Midchilda as Fate had.

"Can you send me the report?" she asked no one in particular.

Almost on cue, her Device popped out the holographic screen. Teana's first crime scene report honestly looked great. If Fate didn't know, she would have thought a veteran wrote it.

 _...Four suspects of interest dead. Cause of death: Model 97 pistol._

 _...Perpetrator unknown. Possible suspects include..._

 _...Combat Cyborg number 4, codename 'Quattro'._

"This is very good," Fate remarked nonchalantly as she closed the file. "I see you've done as I taught you."

"Thank you, Commander." Teana made a slight bow. "I thought my perp list was a bit too small though. I tried to think of somebody else, but I couldn't..."

"MI will take care of that when we send it to them. Don't worry about it."

"I mean, I don't know if I'm even right though..."

"Do you think she did it?"

"I don't know." Teana blinked and looked to the side.

"Do you think she could have done it?"

"I mean, it's possible."

"Then that's what these lists are for. You didn't do anything wrong. Listing someone as a possible perp doesn't mean they're guilty. And if she was truly the only possible suspect, I don't blame you for not being able to find out yourself."

They were quiet for a minute, then Teana spoke up. "Commander, do you think Quattro did it?"

"I'm not sure myself," Fate sighed. "We won't know until we find her."

It was the first deaths and escape from an Orbital Prison in apparently thirty years, from what Fate could tell. No one was supposed to be able to get out.

"This seems really strange to me," she continued. "I mean, she could have been breaking out and killed the guards who tried to stop her, but what's her motive for going back and killing the others? They didn't have any communication, so they wouldn't have anything she wanted them to keep quiet about her escape. And from everything I've experienced, Combat Cyborgs wouldn't kill each other or Dr. Scaglietti. They are like family...yet she's the only one who I can think of who would possibly be the perp."

"Did you find anything suggesting she did it?"

"One of the guards' guns was stolen. Here's the weird part: the other guard's gun was also fired."

"Does that mean...the guard-"

"I hope not."

The next few minutes were spent in silence, as Fate pored over the evidence, until an alarm sounded. She, leading her unit, strode down the hallways of the prison to the hangar airlock, where a young blonde woman in a sky-blue uniform, trimmed with gold, stood, next to a slightly taller redhead in an Enforcer's black. Behind them were the Naval personnel, all standing around, talking, or doing nothing in particular. The two snapped to a salute as they saw Fate approach.

"Captain Greta Katzenschuss, Military Intelligence," the blonde announced. "This is Lieutenant Ernestine Hagder." The redhead nodded. "We are from the Beorc Battalion of the _Vanguard_."

Fate returned their gesture. "Greetings. Sigel Battalion of the _Venture_. We've compiled the reports and evidence of the scene of the crime."

Katzenschuss stared at Fate with what almost seemed like disdain. "Please turn them over to me immediately. Due to a directive from the TSAB, you are relieved of your command over this situation. We are taking over from now onward."

This couldn't be right. All Fate had been told was that another team would be coming to assist her, not that anything of this sort had been planned.

Before she could open her mouth, Teana jumped in. "Wait, where's your proof? We've already got this under control!"

On cue, a holographic text popped up in front of both their faces. "Right here," Katzenschuss smirked. "Think before you speak to a superior officer like that next time, little girl."

A look of fury crossed Teana's face, and she looked like she was just itching to say something back, but Fate held out her arm in front of her. "Enough. Thank you, Captain Katzenschuss. We'll turn it over to you."

Teana bristled, but silently fell back in line as Fate and the unit headed toward their ship that would carry them away. No one said a word.


	3. Chapter 3

_Time-Space Administration Bureau Headquarters, Dimensional Space (coordinates classified)_

It wasn't a common occurrence to see high-ranking Naval brass in line for the food court aboard the space station that made up the Bureau's headquarters. No one, however, was really paying attention to the fact that two Naval admirals were mixed into the queue with them; between the two junior Air Force officers in their pristine white uniforms complaining audibly about how the cafeteria was serving Southern Cone cuisine for the third day in a row, the Navy secretary in royal blue busily taking notes on her touchpad, and the brown-clad Ground Force engineers chattering about something unimportant, everyone was wrapped up in their own little worlds and failed to notice the tall, stately, black-uniformed man in the center of the line. Next to him was a slightly shorter man in Naval blues, but no less authoritative.

Not even the cafeteria worker seemed to care that Chrono Harlaown was the next person to be served; she just passed him his tray with not even a nod. He silently took it and proceeded to a table near the center of the room, dusting off the crumbs left on the table before he sat. His companion, following right behind him, took a seat next to him.

"Shrimp filigree..." the Naval officer muttered. "Can't say I wanted it, but it's not like I had any food in the office." He removed his hat and sat it in his lap before he took a quick look at Chrono sitting contemplatively. "Paperwork tiring you out again?"

"Oh, no, not that..." Chrono muttered. Admiral Vanek Fischer was a relatively handsome man of twenty-five, who was renowned among the TSAB for being the youngest graduate of the prestigious Salkof Military Academy, and having ascended to the rank of Admiral at the age of twenty-two by, as a fleet commander assigned to a far outpost numbered in the high hundreds, successfully bluffing and defeating a pirate fleet twice the size of his command. It was due to his brilliant strategic mind that colonization was proceeding in the hundred worlds smoothly and in great numbers. Normally, only mages rose through the ranks so quickly (as Chrono did), but Fischer did not possess a bit of magical aptitude; it was just his intelligence that allowed him to reach his rank.

"Another meeting broke down again today. Routine stuff, how to best handle the unrest on Clazaria and Yne, budgeting, that sort of thing. The Air Force was angry at Lieutenant General Yagami again...apparently she was in favor of a clemency program for federal prisoners who have proven usefulness to the Bureau, but...it was the wrong time to bring it up. There was a breakout at Orbital Prison-06 today. One of the Combat Cyborgs shot the other three, two guards and five techs, stole a starfighter, and escaped. Ground Forces is on high alert looking for her."

"That's quite unexpected," Fischer replied succinctly.

"Unprecedented in thirty years. The Navy was already angry their impregnable fortress had been breached, and then she goes and brings that up...it got nasty really quickly. One of the Air Force generals was saying that of course only a criminal would want leniency after what just happened and then one of the Ground Force's younger mages, about 15 or so, calls him an incompetent bigot and then says people like him are the reason the JS incident happened. I've never seen an old man move so fast...he jumps up and tries to cross the room to smack the kid in the face and security got called and had to separate them."

"I don't see what was so wrong with what the boy said," Fischer replied. "She has a proven track record. Only twenty-one and already behind the defusing of the most serious terrorist attack Midchilda had seen since the Great War. And corruption and nepotism in the TSAB's higher ranks are what caused the whole incident with Scaglietti anyways. The officers who complain the most about unjust promotions and hate mages are always the most useless ones."

"I wouldn't go that far," Chrono replied. "I told her what had happened before the meeting, and warned that now was not the time to bring her proposal up, but she completely forgot about it. And I'm not saying she's a bad commander, but...when you're in charge of monsters like Riot Force Six, only a fool could screw that up."

"Sounds like you're saying she is a bad commander."

"There's no good way to put it. Just that...I think she's more suited for the front lines than the desk. That officer had a point. She was in possession of a double S-class Logia-" Chrono paused for a second. "I don't really want to go into too much detail about that. But point is, she gets arrested, then immediately pardoned without any consultation of any non-magical commanders...obviously, they're going to be angry. And that kid implying that the general was on the take...great way to get someone extremely pissed at you. I wish the teenagers in the mage brigades would know when to keep their mouths shut."

"Seems a bit ironic to me, weren't you high ranking when you were young?"

"Yes. I was. And when I was thirteen I would have done the exact same thing. Especially if they'd said something about my little sister. That's what worries me."

"Your sister? I didn't think you had one- oh, Captain Testarossa," Fischer said, a bit wistfully. "I've only had the chance to meet her a couple times. She hardly seems like the type to raise any objections from me. I guess it was different a decade ago, when I was still just taking classes in secondary? But I digress. I'd sure like to have tea with her or something soon. I need to take more time to get to know my junior officers."

Chrono bristled a little. "I don't think she would have any interest in your type."

"Me? Stop acting like I'm some sort of playboy, Harlaown. You're making me feel bad," Fischer chuckled. "It's not everyday you get someone like the Golden Flash under your command."

Chrono sighed. "So, pleasantries aside, what exactly is the reason you called me out here? This isn't like you to want to chat."

"Well, you see..." Fischer drew a packet of paper out from inside his jacket. "Take a look at this." He passed it to Chrono, who examined the front cover.

"They're having the Saint Games on Yne? Who approved of this?"

"Well, it's not really my decision to make," Fischer replied coyly. "The planetary governor has fat pockets and he wants to improve his world's public image. Money talks, and they figured why not have the best person in charge of defense that money can buy? So the organizers came straight to me."

"I assume this has something to do with having to borrow something from my command."

"Well, yes. Not just something...someone, would you say. I mean, the planetary government and games organizers really want tourists to come and see how great their world is. How it's not the crime-ridden slums you hear about. How it's safe to visit and live in. And what better way than a ringing endorsement from the hero that saved Midchilda?"

"...You're not thinking of-"

"I am. Nanoha Takamachi, hero of the universe, there to promote the games. People come out in force to get the chance to see her, and stay for the culture and events..."

"I'm not sure she would be too receptive-"

That response was a poor one and Chrono knew it as soon as he said it. Nanoha never shied away from something because there was a chance she would be in danger. If anything, it just strengthened her resolve. It was really that one selfish corner of his heart that still beat for her, more so than just what a commander feels for his men, that wanted to keep her out of harm. After everything that she had been through, he didn't know what he would do if she died. Even though he had a family of his own; although his spouse was chosen for him before he was born, he still loved her and his two children, and didn't want to hurt them. Even if Nanoha had someone else she loved far more than him. He still didn't want her getting hurt again.

But he was also her commanding officer, and a soldier had to not fear death.

 _She's survived a Linker Core rupture when she was eight. She fought Precia Testarossa and lived to tell the tale. And she saved Midchilda. What threat could there possibly be worse than Precia, or the Tome of the Night Sky, or Scaglietti and his army of cyborgs?_

"Harlaown, are you listening?"

"Huh? Oh, right, I guess I'll ask her about it."

"Ask her? You're her commanding officer, aren't you? Why are you letting your subordinate decide what she can do?"

"Well...you don't get to tell the biggest celebrity in the TSAB to go put herself in danger for something pointless."

To tell the truth, that was also a lie. A part of him was secretly hoping she'd say no because he was just a tiny bit jealous. Once again, she got to go on another adventure, getting adored by the public, while he, the actual architect of Riot Force 6, was ignored. True, Nanoha and his younger sister and their trainees may have saved the day, but without his suggestion to let them form their own special unit to train the elite mages of the future, the JS incident would have been much messier.

But then again, he wasn't one for the spotlight.

* * *

 **AUTHOR'S NOTES:**

It has been a long time since I wrote something for fun, and I mean it. I started this chapter sometime around late March and ended it in late November. Actually, it feels really like an eternity ago. I was a whole different person back then, and I hope this means I've gained a new perspective on life, but maybe that's just asking a little too much.

I was a freshman when I finished this. I am now a sophomore. My workload is the worst it has ever been. I'm still watching anime, though not as many. I'm still playing video games, though not as many.

Maybe I have changed, but to me I feel like the same old person who loves to write is still there and that's what inspired me to finish this story. I want to see it come to a satisfying end because I want to share my ideas with all of you.

I really hope I get to see you soon.

-mrcmc888


End file.
